Does it count as a PR if you only one have one other time to go against??Let’s say that it does, us little people need special things too okay?But seriously, I’ve heard a lot of negative feedback regarding the Vegas Strip at Night Marathon, and I feel so fortunate that none of it affected me. I had an amazing time and an awesome race…

We left Victoria Friday after work to head to Vancouver, where we would be flying out of the next day. So, needless to say, Friday was a long day. As was Saturday, we left Vancouver on a 7 am flight and arrived in Las Vegas at approx. 2 pm. After checking into the Mirage we walked across the street to the Venetian where the Expo was held. My previous half was the Calgary Subaru half and the expo left me pretty disappointed.This expo was amazing! Running Skirts was there – I didn’t end up buying anything because I still want their cheetah skirt, which I think is no longer sold? *tear*Brooks had a huge set up, but unfortunately the shirts don’t fit all that well over my female chest bumps. I could go on for an entire post just gushing over the expo. Nuun and Gu were having some wicked sales so I stocked up on those products – the prices were much better than what we can get in Canada. I also bought a long sleeve running tee that says, “Find your Happy Pace.” I love it because it doesn’t specify what that happy pace may be. Mine is probably somewhere between a 9:30 or 10 min mile. Nice and slow. But so what? You’ll never know…I usually try and sprint like it’s no big deal whenever I pass people in public. This becomes problematic when I run along the Victoria waterfront in the summer. I usually last about one minute, tops, and then pass out from sheer exhaustion.This is normal, right?But seriously (and I should mention as this may be too early in the blog for sarcasm, but I’m being facetious here), I left the Expo being dragged out by the hair by my husband, caveman-style. We needed to save some of our trip budget for the shopping, gambling, eating, and drinking that was yet to take place.We took it fairly easy the remainder of the day by checking out our hotel and heading for a nice dinner at the Wynne.

A glimpse of what was in store for me in just a few hours.

Race morning gave me a bit of an issue – the Vegas race was at night – I was eating at 11am and was completely unsure about what to eat and when or if I should eat again before the race. So I decided that the best move would be to stuff my face at a brunch buffet at 11am and then have a snack before the race. Good move. The buffet at the Mirage was delicious – I had a made-to-order omelette, salad, fruit and a whole bunch of other deliciousness. The rest of the day we spent gambling and just hanging in the hotel.

At about 3 pm we decided it was time to make our way over to the start line. The Mirage is situated about half way along the strip and approximately two miles from the Mandalay Bay, which is where all the festivities were held.So you know, we thought that we would have no problem catching a cab to the start and that they would just reopen the strip to let our cab get there because D and I are so darn important and ridiculously good-looking. Unfortunately, no one else agreed.So, the cab driver got us as close as he could to the Excalibur – and dropped us off at In-N-Out Burger. Can I just put in an aside here and mention that the month before our trip all I talked about was going to In-N-Out Burger? The closest one to Victoria is in Southern California and it’s not like I can get there on a day’s drive.So I contemplated having a cheeseburger before the race, D persuaded me otherwise. I’m still bitter about it.After some interesting manoeuvres walking over an overpass along the side of the highway (which certainly is not safe), and a ride on the monorail, we made it. And we still had another hour or so before the gun would go off.Because we were there an hour early the porta-potty line-ups were not bad at all. I was able to grab a GREEN banana before the race, have some water and relax.

Side Note #2: One of my few complaints about this race, GREEN BANANAS. Seriously have you ever tried to eat an unripe banana before? It was solid as a rock. It also left that gross paste-y feel inside my mouth and on my hands. But I hadn’t eaten since the buffet so what can you do?

At this point most people were hanging out inside Mandalay Bay waiting for the race time to draw closer. It was starting to get a bit cold (I’m from Canada, so I can say that with all certainty) and the sun was starting to set, so clearly, they were smarter than me. At about 5pm I left D-money and entered corral 12 to wait the 30 minutes for the race to start. He went on his way to do some more gambling and drinking. I stood in the corral as the temperature continued to drastically drop.By the time the race was set to start I was an icicle with a bunch of people from later corrals standing next to me. Complaint #2, there were 41 corrals, I don’t know if people couldn’t get to theirs or were too lazy, or perhaps they all signed up for the race late and decided that the 3_ on their chest dictating their corral was wrong. But there were a LOT of walkers in corral 12 with me. In fact, there were a lot of walkers in corrals ahead of me.So the moment of truth was finally there. It was time for corral 12 to make their way out along the strip.